Effective Leadership is one of the most fundamental components of our exclusive Success Through People(c) Model.
The simple fact is that the best, most sustainable businesses have great leadership. Leaders need to be effective from both task and people perspectives: they need to be achievement-focused, technically-capable, able to align the activity of others to strategy, self-aware, authentic and relatable, consultative and consistent.
While each individual leader needs to be effective, they also need to be collectively effective, particularly as the business grows. They need to be “on the same page” in terms of vision and values for example, and they need to work effectively together in order to determine and achieve the right strategy for success.
So how’s your business performing in terms of Effective Leadership?
Rate each of the following items on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “not at all”, and 5 being “to a great extent”.
To what extent:
- Do you/your managers have the necessary skills and experience to effectively lead the team?
- Do those individuals leading others in your business act as a cohesive group?
- Do you/individual managers make decisions based on the overall benefit to the business (as distinct from their own areas of responsibility)?
- Do you/individual managers demonstrate the desired behaviours and values of the business?
- Do you/your managers have an appropriate balance between “getting stuff done” and effectively managing the people within the team?
Add your responses together to give you a total score out of 25.
Score <14: It’s probable that there is scope for significant improvement
Score 14 – 20: It’s likely that there is scope for further improvement
Score 21 – 25: Great work! You may still be able to identify a few tips to improve even further
Tips to Improve:
- Provide opportunities for leaders to get individual feedback and coaching on their management/ leadership styles and plan for improvement (diagnostics such as Everything DiSC® and Human-Synergistics LSI can be valuable).
- Consider/evaluate the collective effectiveness of the management team and identify development or other opportunities to improve.
- Place leadership on the agenda as an item for discussion at the next management meeting. Gather views regarding current individual and collective effectiveness, discuss what “good” leadership look like within your business, what can/should be done differently?
- Develop a simple matrix of core capabilities (knowledge, skills and personal attributes) required of managers, assess current incumbents and provide support to fill identified gaps.
Note: If you’re “flying solo” as a leader in your business, reflect on the effectiveness of your own leadership style by considering the attributes of the most and least effective leaders you’ve come across. Perhaps also ask yourself; what type of leader do you want to be? If you’re not quite there yet, what actions can you take today/next week/next month to get there?
Curious as to how your business or team is performing in terms of the other components of the model? Take the free, confidential Success through People(c) Scorecard today – click here.